I have been using ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 quite a bit lately, as I’m sure most of you are aware from my recent posts.  In those posts, I used standard HTML script references to show that ASP.NET AJAX is not reliant upon ASP.NET.  I realize that many of you are in fact using ASP.NET, and today we will take a look at using the ScriptManager. 

First we’ll look at using the Preview 4 scripts within an ASP.NET 3.5 application (with the ScriptManager of course) as well as using client templates and ADO.NET Data Services with the ScriptManager in ASP.NET 4.0 (Beta 1).  After that, we’ll take a closer look at some of the new features of the ScriptManager in ASP.NET 4.0. 

Preview 4 and the ASP.NET 3.5 ScriptManager

In my posts on ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 so far, I used standard HTML script references (as stated earlier).  However, what if you wanted to incorporate the new ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 scripts with a ScriptManager.  I tried this in a recent ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 project, and ran into some issues getting it all to work out.  Thanks to this blog (and Bertrand LeRoy), I found the solution.

<asp:scriptmanager id="sm" runat="server">
    <scripts>
        <asp:scriptreference scriptmode="Inherit" name="MicrosoftAjax.js" path="~/scripts/MicrosoftAjax.js" />
        <asp:scriptreference scriptmode="Inherit" path="~/scripts/MicrosoftAjaxAdoNet.js" />
        <asp:scriptreference scriptmode="Inherit" path="~/scripts/MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js" />                
    </scripts>
</asp:scriptmanager>

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Throughout the course of my introductory posts on ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, we looked at the new DataView control as well as the Sys.Observer class, which brings the Observer pattern to plain JavaScript objects.  The new ASP.NET AJAX release is very exciting offering powerful new features to take AJAX enabled applications to a new level.  In this post, we’ll look at another exciting feature of ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 known as “live bindings.” 

You may remember that we looked briefly at live bindings in the client templates post, but for those examples I used one-way / one-time bindings.  Today, we’ll take a closer look at live bindings and see how two-way live bindings removes the one-way / one-time binding restriction allowing us to update bound elements on our page automatically when the underlying data changes. 

Again, in this post, I’ll be using Preview 4 of the ASP.NET AJAX Library, which can be downloaded from CodePlex.  The Preview 4 version can be used in your applications today (e.g. ASP 3.5, HTML).  Keep in mind that these components are still in "preview" mode (meaning no Microsoft support), though they are usable at your own risk.  For more information, you can check out the license on CodePlex. More...

In my last post on ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, we took a look at the new DataView ASP.NET AJAX control.  We saw that by using a DataView, we could easily bind data with JavaScript or declaratively with a few attributes.  In this post, we’ll look at another feature of the ASP.NET 4.0 AJAX Library, the Observer design pattern for plain JavaScript objects.  The pattern is implemented in the client side Sys.Observer class.  This feature is used internally within the new version of ASP.NET AJAX for live-binding and the DataView control.  

Here we will be using Preview 4 of the ASP.NET AJAX Library, which can be downloaded from CodePlex.  Remember that these components are still in "preview" mode (meaning no Microsoft support), though they are usable at your own risk.  For more information, you can check out the license on CodePlex.  I highly recommend downloading the samples available for Preview 4, which are also available at CodePlex.  The samples give you a good look at what is coming. 

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the Sys.Observer class, witness the problems it solves, and take a look at a few examples.  More...

I’ve been experimenting with using ASP.NET MVC inside a standard ASP.NET Web Application (Web Forms).  I really like what’s been released with MVC 1.0 and can see places where existing apps would benefit from the features.  Plus, having just finished Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 from Wrox (see my book review), I couldn’t wait to start using it. 

The last chapter of the book, Chapter 12, entitled “Best of Both Worlds: Web Forms and MVC Together,” discusses configuring an ASP.NET Web Application to support the new ASP.NET MVC features.  Note that adding Web Forms to an ASP.NET MVC project template is much easier (meaning no configuration/reference changes), since ASP.NET MVC is built on top of the ASP.NET Framework.  Anyway, after referencing the required libraries, creating the necessary directories, and updating the web.config, you’ll find that templates for the MVC items (e.g. Controllers, Views), are missing as options.  More...

Working primarily on web applications, I’ve focused most of my time on ASP.NET Web Forms since the very early betas.  Web Forms were truly a great revolution in the web world.  Once I saw the functionality when it first came out (when I was using ::shudder::  “classic” ASP), I couldn’t wait to start using it.  I began right away with ASP+, as it was called back in 2000, abandoning Visual Interdev and ASP, yippee.  The release of Version 1.0 came out January 16, 2002, changing the way we work with the web.

Flash-forward 7 years (9 from the early betas), and the programming world has changed.  With things like TDD (Test Driven Development), AJAX, JSON, jQuery, etc, and the complexity of web applications growing, sometimes Web Forms would get in the way.  To be fair, the Web Form framework is very robust and tries to be helpful, but sometimes we developers like to shoot ourselves in the foot.  One example that I’m sure many of you have experienced is trying to interface with a server-rendered element on the page.  Performing something like a document.getElementById(‘UserName’) in JavaScript doesn’t exactly work as expected when the ID of your textbox is now something along the lines of “ctl00_mainContent_LoginCtrl_UserName,” does it?  On this particular topic, ASP.NET 4.0 has a solution for this problem, but that isn’t the focus of this post.  The Client Id problem, is just one example of the framework “getting in your way.”  This is one of the many reasons behind the advent of ASP.NET MVC.  Having just finished Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 from Wrox, I’m a convert. More...